/// Dubai Free Zone Atlas · 29 zones · 308 sourced figures
Every free zone in Dubai. One map, every number sourced.
Companies, trade, workforce, cost of entry and who is good at what — across all 29 zones, with the origin of every figure. Gaps stay visible: a gap is a fact too.
- Free zones
- 29
- Dubai emirate
- Companies
- 107K+
- across 25 zones · mixed provenance
- Dubai trade 2025
- 3.0tn
- AED · surpassed 3tn
- Greenfield FDI 2025
- 1,253
- projects · #1 globally, 5th year
/// [The map]
×+×Forty years of free zones, on one screen.
Column height is the metric you pick; colour is where the number comes from. Press play to watch the zones appear from JAFZA in 1985 to Expo City today.
Column height = companies · 25 of 29 zones publish it
/// [Who leads what]
×+×Six questions a minister asks first.
Ranked by what each authority publishes. Blue bars are the zone's own numbers; grey bars are third-party estimates. Zones that publish nothing are simply absent — and that absence is data.
Companies
Active registered companies
Net new companies
Net new companies in the period
- 1DIFC2.5Kreported
- 2DMCC2.3Kreported
- 3JAFZA990estimated
- 4DWTC850reported
- 5Dubai South653reported
Workforce
People working in the zone
Trade
Trade value through the zone, USD bn
- 1JAFZA$190bnreported
Cheapest to set up
Cheapest published first-year setup, AED
/// [Momentum]
×+×Who is growing fastest.
Company counts indexed to 2021, for every authority that has published a multi-year trail. Hover a name to isolate it.
Index, 2021 = 100 · company counts as published by each authority
/// [Positioning]
×+×Where zones compete, and where nobody is.
Every zone's own sector list, folded into eight lanes. Crowded lanes mean zones bidding against each other for the same tenants; empty lanes are white space for the emirate.
| Zone | Trade & logistics13 zones | Tech & digital7 zones | Finance & fintech3 zones | Media & creative8 zones | Manufacturing & energy6 zones | Health & life sciences3 zones | Education & talent3 zones | Business & professional services8 zones |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DAFZ | ||||||||
| DUCAMZ | ||||||||
| CommerCity | ||||||||
| d3 | ||||||||
| DHCC | ||||||||
| Industrial City | ||||||||
| DIAC | ||||||||
| DIFC | 290 | |||||||
| DIC | ||||||||
| DKP | ||||||||
| Maritime City | ||||||||
| DMC | ||||||||
| DMCC | 4K | 2K | ||||||
| DOC | ||||||||
| DPC | ||||||||
| DSP | ||||||||
| DSO | ||||||||
| Dubai South | ||||||||
| Studio City | ||||||||
| Textile City | ||||||||
| Wholesale City | ||||||||
| DUQE | ||||||||
| DWTC | ||||||||
| Expo City | ||||||||
| G&D Park | ||||||||
| IFZA | ||||||||
| IHC | ||||||||
| JAFZA | 1.2K | 629 | ||||||
| Meydan |
Dot = the zone positions itself in the lane (its own sector list). Number = companies the zone publishes for that cluster. Lanes are Delta Y’s grouping of each zone’s own vocabulary.
/// [Cost of entry]
×+×What it costs to arrive.
The first question every investor asks, answered from published fee schedules where they exist and consultancy quotes where they don't — labelled accordingly.
Cheapest published first-year setup
Licence + registration (+ flexi-desk where bundled), AED. Hover a bar for what it includes. 8 zones publish no price at all.
- DIFCAED 5.9Kreported
- DWTCAED 8Kestimated
- Maritime CityAED 10Kreported
- G&D ParkAED 10Kreported
- JAFZAAED 10Kreported
- IHCAED 11.3Kreported
- Dubai SouthAED 12.5Kestimated
- DUQEAED 12.5Kreported
- IFZAAED 12.5Kestimated
- MeydanAED 12.5Kreported
- d3AED 15Kestimated
- DICAED 15Kestimated
- DKPAED 15Kestimated
- DMCAED 15Kestimated
- DSPAED 15Kestimated
- DHCCAED 16.6Kreported
- Expo CityAED 17.6Kreported
- DAFZAED 24Kestimated
- CommerCityAED 28.9Kestimated
- DMCCAED 35.5Kreported
- DSOAED 43.2Kestimated
Structural advantages
Published, zone-specific regimes — beyond the 0% qualifying corporate tax and 100% ownership every zone shares.
/// [Transparency]
×+×You cannot steer what you cannot see.
What each zone publishes across the universal metrics. This grid is the case for a shared data layer: today the emirate's free-zone economy is measured by a handful of annual reports and press releases.
| Zone | Companies | Net new companies | Workforce | Trade | Revenue | Occupancy | Commercial space | Setup cost | Setup time | Site area | Retention | Reported |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DIFC | 6/11 | |||||||||||
| JAFZA | 5/11 | |||||||||||
| DMCC | 5/11 | |||||||||||
| Dubai South | 4/11 | |||||||||||
| DWTC | 3/11 | |||||||||||
| d3 | 3/11 | |||||||||||
| DIC | 3/11 | |||||||||||
| Maritime City | 3/11 | |||||||||||
| DSO | 3/11 | |||||||||||
| DHCC | 3/11 | |||||||||||
| Industrial City | 3/11 | |||||||||||
| DAFZ | 2/11 | |||||||||||
| DKP | 2/11 | |||||||||||
| DSP | 2/11 | |||||||||||
| G&D Park | 2/11 | |||||||||||
| Meydan | 2/11 | |||||||||||
| DMC | 1/11 | |||||||||||
| DUQE | 1/11 | |||||||||||
| Expo City | 1/11 | |||||||||||
| IHC | 1/11 | |||||||||||
| CommerCity | 0/11 | |||||||||||
| IFZA | 0/11 | |||||||||||
| DUCAMZ | 0/11 | |||||||||||
| DOC | 0/11 | |||||||||||
| DPC | 0/11 | |||||||||||
| Studio City | 0/11 | |||||||||||
| Textile City | 0/11 | |||||||||||
| Wholesale City | 0/11 | |||||||||||
| DIAC | 0/11 | |||||||||||
| zones reporting | 10 | 4 | 10 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 10 | 12 | 4 | 2 |
/// [The bigger picture]
×+×The economy they sit inside.
Dubai's headline numbers, the D33 targets the zones are asked to deliver against, and what the Free Zones Council has already moved on.
Greenfield FDI projects
- 20231,070
- 20241,117
- 20251,253
Greenfield projects announced per year (fDi Markets basis). Dubai ranked #1 globally every year since 2021. 2023/2024 from the respective Dubai Media Office releases.
reportedDubai Department of Finance — greenfield FDI 2025D33 targets the zones deliver against
- Foreign trade
- AED 14.2tn (past decade) → AED 25.6tn in goods and services by 2033.
- FDI
- AED 32bn/yr average → AED 60bn/yr, AED 650bn cumulative by 2033.
- Trade map
- 400 new cities added to Dubai’s foreign trade map.
- Economy
- Double the size of Dubai’s economy; top-3 global city.
- Free zones (DFZC)
- Free zones to contribute AED 250bn to Dubai GDP by 2030.
Dubai Free Zones Council
Chaired by Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum; 11 member authorities.
- One Freezone Passport (Jul 2025): one licence, multiple free zones — first case Louis Vuitton (JAFZA + DWTC) in 5 days.reportedDubai Media Office
- Free Zone Mainland Operating Permit (Oct 2025): free zone companies operate on the mainland for AED 5,000 per 6 months.reportedDubai Media Office
- 0% corporate tax on Qualifying Income for a Qualifying Free Zone Person; 9% on non-qualifying income (de minimis: lower of 5% of revenue or AED 5m).reportedUAE Ministry of Finance — Corporate Tax
/// [Intelligence pages]
×+×One page per zone. Same product, their data.
Each zone gets a whitelabel intelligence page: its own numbers, its own trajectory, its own benchmarks against peers — and a clear view of what it could show with data it already holds.